Wednesday, 3 March 2010

Will Oram be fit for IPL 3?

Jacob Oram, the Kiwi all-rounder who underwhelmed last year in South Africa, has been taken off the field due to a hyperextension of the knee, according to this tweet by BFInnoBystander.

Frankly, Jacob Oram was the biggest disappointment of last year. The pitches in South Africa were very spicy, considering that domestic cricket had been played on those pitches just a couple of weeks before the IPL started.

However, Big Jake failed to take advantage of this and leaked plenty of runs and didn't take any wickets (5 wickets with an average of 26 and an economy rate of 8.5). He also didn't score much (avg of 14.66 at a strike rate of 94).

However, as we know, our skipper, MS Dhoni, has shown a tendency to stick with players regardless of how bad they are. Either that, or he felt an obligation to pick 4 foreign players, regardless of whether they were good enough. IMO, we could've gone with Ravichandran Ashwin rather than with Big Jake.

Right, enough of the rambling and to the whole motive of this post. Who should we get if Big Jake isn't fit for IPL3?

I was thinking, perhaps Mohammed Aamer. Yes, this may not appeal to all, considering that he was snubbed in the auction, along with his other Pakistani comrades. However, Aamer is a genuinely good fast bowler capable of bowling consistently within the 140s. As I mentioned in the comments of one of Robin's post, CSK lacks a good fast bowler other than Sudeep Tyagi (Bala should actually be classified as a medium pace bowler rather than medium-fast). Moreover, we can get him at a very good price.

Alternatively, rather than going for a quickie, we can beef up our spin stocks by picking the Bangla star all-rounder and skipper, Shakib Al Hasan. He's been a real revelation in the past year, picking a bucket-load of wickets and scoring quick runs. He's got passion, which can be very useful for CSK. Frankly, I'm extremely surprised that he hasn't been picked in the last 2 auctions, which is a real pity, considering how enormously talented he is.

We could also go for Mahmudullah, another Bangla all-rounder, who is showing glimpses of his talent as a batsman with a century against NZ in NZ. He's already proved enough of his bowling talent, having taken 8 wickets in his maiden test against West Indies last year.

So here are the players I could think of as replacements over the top of my head. Who else do you think we could get as a replacement for Big Jake?

3 comments:

Siddharth said...

How about Doug Bollinger ?

Cub said...

Pak has revoked all NOCs. Getting Ameer is definitely out of the question. Shakib would be ideal. He definitely fills the SLA bowler & all rounder slot.

Graeme Swann/Nathan McCullum is also worth taking a look

Siddharth said...

Bollinger has been signed as I predicted !